To celebrate the rekindled relationship between the Dwarfs and the Narnians, a grand ball had been organised for the final night of the Dwarfish visit. Since Isadora was now entertaining a tentative friendship with Tórví, she had invited the latter to her rooms to get ready. It was a ritual she had gone through many times before with various girlfriends throughout the years and it had only made sense to her to now extend the same courtesy to her new friend.

"I'm a little unsure which dress to wear tonight," she said to Tórví, swinging open the doors to her wardrobe.

Tórví's eyes widened as she beheld the row upon row of dresses for all occasions.

"I've never seen so many dresses, never mind worn one before," she said, stroking her hands along the skirts. "They aren't very practical in the Chasm and… well, they tend to be thought of as teuchach."

"I've been hearing that word a lot recently…" Isadora said.

Tórví looked down at her feet. "It… it isn't the nicest word," she admitted. "The best translation into the Common Tongue I can think of is "bare-faced"."

"Bare-faced?" Isadora frowned. Her fingers absently touched her own bare cheeks as she could not help but stare at the dark hairs on Tórví's chin.

Tórví sat down carefully on the edge of Isadora's bed.

"When the Telmarines invaded Narnia, most of the Old Narnians went underground – as you know," she explained. "The Dwarfs withdrew into the Deep Chasm and while most live in contentment; some long to live beneath the Sun. Our races are so similar that most Dwarfish men may pass un-noticed amongst the humans but… well, bearded ladies will cause quite a bit of attention. To pass as humans they need to shave; they need to go bare-faced; they must give up an integral part of their Dwarfishness and thus they are considered teuchach."

She looked very uncomfortable with the whole notion. "The Elder Families tend to reject these particular Daughters of Earth… and quite often they are cast from our city and never allowed to return. Originally it was once just the Daughters but the term has now extended to include their sons and the few Sons of Earth like Trumpkin who have left us."

"You just ostracise anyone who wants to leave?" Isadora said, sitting down next to her.

"The Elder Families are rather old-fashioned. Archaic, even," she said a little lamely. "Njáll was given more freedoms than I but that has resulted in him falling more in line with their beliefs. I was always expected to behave a certain way and it has always made me pine for what I could not have."

She recalled the few times she had snuck away from the safety of the Chasm with Trumpkin or Nikabrik. She had never wanted to stray as widely as they did but she had journeyed far enough to meet some of the hidden Narnians such as Trufflehunter.

"Have you lost someone?" Isadora asked gently.

Tórví bit her lip and then nodded.

"An aunt, a few friends," she said. "All because they could not find a husband in the Chasm, or because they fell in love with a Son of Adam… And, well, Trumpkin of course."

Isadora laid her hand across Tórví's as the Dwarf looked down at floor. Many emotions flickered across her face until she eventually raised her head and stared up at Isadora's dresses again.

"Can I borrow a dress tonight?" she asked. "You have done so much to welcome us so I think we should do something in return. Besides, I've always wanted to wear one."

"Are you sure?" Isadora frowned. "I don't want you to get in trouble."

"Don't worry about me. This is my decision," she replied, her eyes flashing even as her mouth curved into a warm smile.

Isadora smiled back and then called to Cloe. Her maid looked over from the corner of the room where she had been sorting her mistress's jewellery.

"Cloe, could you possibly go and hunt out some of my sister's dresses that were placed into storage?" Isadora asked her. "If you cannot find any, please go ask Lady Casales to see if she has anything suitable."

Cloe nodded her blonde head and then trailed off towards the door, humming a small melody of her own invention as she went. She had been singing it for quite some time as she went about her business around the castle and it always warmed Isadora's heart to hear.

"Should I wear my hair up or down tonight?" she asked, turning back to Tórví.

The Dwarf was sitting quite still on her bed; her mouth slightly open and her eyes far away.

"Tórví?" Isadora asked tentatively and she blinked rapidly.

"Sorry… I thought… I just lost my train of thought," she said. "Wear your hair down. You look a bit… severe with your hair up."


"Lady Orellana-Scythley of Meadowholt," the herald announced as Isadora entered the Great Hall. There was a small scattering of applause to welcome her but she barely noticed. As she glided across the room, accepting a goblet from a passing servant, she found her eyes wandering and searching for a familiar face. She scanned all the faces around her, both Narnian and Telmarine, but she could not find who she was searching for.

Pausing at the peripheries of the room, she brought the goblet to her lips and took a long sip.

Her eyes flitted around the room a final time. They fell on the dark curls of a young Telmarine girl crossing the room to join a friend. She smiled and opened her mouth to call out before the girl turned slightly at some other call and Isadora realised that she did not even know her name.

Then it hit her, she had been looking for Ghaliya. Her sister had just turned old enough to attend the court functions before she had left.

It had been almost a year since her family had passed through the Door in the Tree but she was still having these moments where she thought she saw them. No matter how much she insisted that she was fine, no matter how much she tried to bury her feelings, she missed them terribly. Something was missing from her life and her heart was aching for the space to be filled.

And suddenly Caspian was beside her but something was different; he was the King, not her Cas and his mouth was moving and he was smiling down at her but she had no clue what he was saying and she didn't know how to respond-

The crowd shifted and she saw Tórví standing proud in her borrowed dress. The dwarf looked around, sensing her gaze, and smiled at her. That tiny gesture from one who was only a short time unwilling to give her the time of day gave her just a tiny ledge to grab and she stopped herself tumbling into the abyss.

She laughed at some quip Caspian made and turned her attention to further grounding herself back in the party and back in reality.

She could hear her cousin still giggling at his little joke, she could feel the cold, smooth metal of her goblet, she could taste the sharpness of the berries in her wine (not too different from her father's favourite, a tiny voice in the back of her mind reminded her), she could smell spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, saffron-

She could see directly across the ballroom to the buffet and the lone figure who stood there. Unlike most balls which were preceded by a banquet, Caspian had decided to lay out a buffet so guests could help themselves to food as they required it. There was a girl standing beside it now with a plate in her hands; a plate she was heaping high with all the tastiest titbits she could find.

Clearly she was a servant who had snuck up to help herself. She was dressed in a pair of brown trousers tucked into riding boots and a sandy coloured jerkin unlike everyone around her in their finery.

Isadora sighed and made her excuses to Caspian. In a few quick strides she had swept across the hall to confront the girl.

"What do you think you are doing?" she asked the strange girl, hands on hips. The girl looked around, bread roll sticking out of her mouth, and stared at her. She bit through the roll and chewed it with an insolent grin.

"I want your name. Hywel will not be pleased with you; I would not be surprised if this ends in your dismissal," Isadora continued.

The girl sniggered and turned her attention back to the buffet.

"Your name?" Isadora asked again.

"Do you want me to handle this, Dor?" a new voice said. She turned and saw Lorrin approaching them.

"I'm managing fine, thank you," she said, a little more curtly than she intended.

Lorrin raised his eyebrows and then grinned at her. The little smirk that he had inherited from his father; the one that always made the hair rise on the back of her neck and send a shiver down her spine.

"Trust me, I'll take care of her," he said, his smirk widening, and for a moment she stood not before Lorrin, her friend, but before a Sopespian; the family her mother had always warned her were the most cunning and sly at court.

"If you are sure," she mumbled and turned and left them. As she paced away, she looked back over her shoulder. Lorrin had gripped the girl's elbow and was talking to her with anger rippling across his face. The stranger peeked up at him through her lashes and smiled impishly. He paused and raised his eyebrows at her as if expecting an answer. Instead she merely laughed and pushed the other half of her roll into his mouth.

Isadora had travelled halfway across the room while watching them but she stopped and made to turn back at the girl's impudent display.

The crowd shifted and she lost sight of them only for everyone to move again to reveal Njáll storming towards her with an expression that could curdle milk.

"I trust you are the cause of my sister's… appearance this evening," he snarled.

"Lady Iceguard chose her outfit of her own volition," Isadora said evenly. "I merely helped her fulfil her wish to bring our peoples together."

Njáll's face, already flushed from wine and a slightly too tight collar, became a lovely shade of claret. He opened his mouth, presumably to snap at her again, but all that emerged from his throat was an angry croak. He hooked a finger into his collar and wiggled it back and forth in a desperate attempt to clear his airways a little.

By good fortune, Trumpkin magically appeared from the depths of the crowd. Isadora shot him a slightly panicked signal for help and he took the hint.

"M'u Rhuzhaakm," he said, inclining his head to Njáll, who turned a further ugly shade of purple.

"U teuchach," the Low King snarled back.

Isadora tried to think of something to say as the two dwarfs faced each other; Njáll with a face of thunder and Trumpkin with a small self-assured smirk. This meeting had been long delayed and she trembled to think she had to stand witness to it.


Hello, apologies for the terrible delay. :)

I hope you've enjoyed the chapter and I'll try to have the next one out as quick as I can.